


Acta non verba

by christinefromsherwood



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Getting Together, Humor, M/M, Post-Skyfall, Q lost a bet with Bond, Rivalry, SPECTER never happened, be a plot twist ahead, but there might, just might, mostly fun, now has to go through a rudimentary field agent training
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-03-19 20:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18977950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinefromsherwood/pseuds/christinefromsherwood
Summary: “It has been pointed out to me that I, the running of my branch and my handling of missions might stand to gain from my having experience in the field,” Q finally added a trifle pompously. This time Mallory didn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at him. “I have, apparently, been insufficiently sympathetic to the plight of our field agents.”“You’ve lost your bet with Bond, I take it,” Mallory decided to cut to the chase.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the fest: Chapter 5 and up :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### 2019 00Fest sign-ups are open.
> 
> (It promises to be a really fun thing, and apparently you don't need to be a writer to participate.)  
> It's organized by the lovely people of the MI6Cafe on Tumblr. [Here's more info on it, and links to the sign-up sheet.](https://mi6-cafe.tumblr.com/post/185398496672/007-fest-sign-ups-are-open)

Q stared.

And stared.

And stared.

“Bond?” he finally croaked. “You can’t be serious.”

“Afraid so, Quartermaster dear,” the man’s voice sang playfully in his ear, not an ounce of regret to be found.

Q was shaking his head now. In a sort of mute despair.

“I can’t, I can’t,” he heard himself repeat. Though he had said to himself before he’d set out that he would remain professional, and cool as the idiomatical cucumber, he found that his cool was rather hard to find at this particular moment in time. “This is… I _cannot_ … You can’t do this to me, Bond.”

“I think you’ll find that I can,” countered the indomitable voice.  “You had your chance to back out, Quartermaster, you know you did.”

Q swallowed drily. As much as he would like to, he couldn’t refute that statement. Bond _had_ given him an out.

“Mallory has signed off on this, the paperwork you love so much has been filed,” Bond continued, and was that laughter in his voice? Q clenched his fists. He was enjoying himself, that bastard! “So hop to it!”

Q stared at his target. She was not an unattractive woman. Q could admit that -- objectively. If he were a man interested in such things, he might even be pushed to call her... maturely alluring. As it was, his mind was blank. Except for one phrase he remembered hearing somewhere a long time ago:

“A beautiful woman, sure, but her face reminded me of two crows who crashed brutally into the white cliffs of Dover.” 

Q had not the first idea how to seduce information about her husband's potentially illicit activities out of her.

* * *

three days earlier

Mallory looked from the paperwork on his desk to the young man in the chair opposite, and then back to the forms again.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to press you for an explanation, Q,” he said finally. It wouldn’t do to make a rash decision when the lad was already looking so frazzled.

“You’ve read the paperwork,” Q said quietly.

“I have,” Mallory allowed. “I have also read the paperwork that you’d filed when you assumed your current position, _refusing_ this very training you are now asking for.”

“Yes,” was the only reply he got.

Mallory fought the urge to roll his eyes, or huff with impatience. The Quartermaster was either embarrassed, or in some serious trouble to clam up like this.

“Is there a threat we should be aware of? Do you feel unsafe?” he began again. “I can assign you a security detail. 007 has just come in from a miss-“

“No!” the Quartermaster yelped.

Mallory didn’t manage to stop his eyebrows from rising on his forehead to nearly touch his sparse hairline at full height.

“No security necessary. There is no threat,” the young man added quickly, quite red in the face.

“Very well,” Mallory sighed. He did not reach for his pen, though. Instead, he waited.

“I know… I know you have to justify all expenditures to the ministry,” Q finally, reluctantly opened his mouth. “If you feel that the organization cannot afford-”

 “It’s not a question of resources, Patrick,” Mallory interrupted briskly, letting his annoyance show. He could feel the muscles around his left eye start to tick. “I should simply like an explanation before I sign off on you disappearing from your branch for a _full fortnight_ to roll around in the mud in fatigues!”

“I wouldn’t be going through the actual bootcamp, sir,” Patrick protested with a whine to his voice that Mallory hadn’t heard from the boy since his mother told him at the age of nine that he absolutely could not play around under the bonnet of Uncle Gary’s new government-issued car.

He merely raised his eyebrow in an expectant gesture and finally saw the younger man capitulate.

“It has been pointed out to me that I, the running of my branch and my handling of missions might stand to gain from my having experience in the field,” he finally added a trifle pompously. This time Mallory didn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes at his godson. “I have, apparently, been insufficiently sympathetic to the plight of our field agents.”

“You’ve lost your bet with Bond, I take it,” Mallory decided to cut to the chase. He might have known!

“How did you…” Q spluttered, and Mallory allowed himself a self-satisfied grin.

“I’d be a fool to reveal my sources,” he said and smirked. “Be satisfied with the knowledge that nothing goes on at MI6 that I do not know about.”

“Uh-huh,” replied his godson dubiously, the shadow of his younger self showing again.

“So what exactly is your punishment?”

Q took a deep breath and began reciting what sounded like a prepared speech:

“Due to the time constraints my position as Quartermaster lays upon my person and the fact that I am already more than familiar with the handling and discharge of all of our issued weaponry and technology, I am to be instructed in the bare bones of typical field agent skills and then be deployed on a series of short N-Level missions to gain experience.”

“Uh-huh,” Mallory parroted, and fought a smile. “In short, Bond wants to have footage of you making a fool of yourself.”

Q threw him a mutinous look, but didn’t disagree.

“’A series of missions’… how many exactly?”

“Five.”

“A nice round number,” Mallory agreed placidly, and reached for his pen. “Shall I sign then?”

Q only huffed and nodded. Mallory sent the tip of his pen sliding across the official paper with a flourish. Then raised the corner of the form to get to the one below it and signed that as well. He shook the papers so the edges aligned perfectly and handed them over to the gloomy-looking young man opposite.

“Here you are then, Quartermaster.”

Q stood from his chair and made towards the door without another word. Mallory watched the defeated slope of his shoulders, and rolled his eyes again.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Patrick, don’t be overdramatic! You might even have fun. Bond isn’t a complete bastard.”

All he got in answer was a dubious eyebrow as the office door closed behind MI6’s youngest Quartermaster.

* * *

Bond was a complete and utter bastard.

Q shook himself, resisted the urge to check his face in the mirror above the bar again, and began to extricate his long legs from the bar stool. It wouldn’t do to get tangled up and fall over on the floor like a parody of an ungainly new-born fawn.

He wobbled a bit unsteadily as he felt the sole of his right Oxford shoe slip on a bit of liquid spilt on the floor. He had to grab the bar stool for support to keep himself upright.

From the comm in his ear, he could hear several voices unsuccessfully muffle snorts of laughter.

Grand! His audience had apparently grown.

“Always be aware of your surroundings, agent,” he heard Bond drawl. “That’ll be a mark down.”

Q bit back the retort where he advised 007 exactly where he could shove his marks, and settled for a low growl.

“Tut tut,” Bond continued and he had to have held the mic directly against the paper for Q to hear him scribble, as he muttered airily: “Shows reluctance to follow instructions in the field.”

Q inhaled slowly through the nose, and then deliberately let it out of his mouth.

“What are my instructions, sir?” he asked, when he could be sure his voice wouldn’t shake in fury. On the line, Bond hummed thoughtfully.

“You have successfully identified your target, agent. Now you must initiate approach.”

“I’m not a plane preparing for landing!” was out of Q’s mouth before he could stop himself. In his ear there was more laughter and more of Bond’s tutting.

“And there’s that reluctance again.”

Q fumed and at last remembered to pretend as though he was leisurely looking around the room, instead of simply standing in the middle of a bar, and making faces at empty air.

“Of course, if you feel the seduction of a target is beyond your skill, you could always forfeit…”

“No, never,” Q snarled, and clenched his fingers in the leather bolster of the stool. “I am not building you another Martin, just so you can go off on a holiday to Cardiff and blow it up again!”

“Well then, it seems your course is clear, then,” came a placid, pleasant reply.

Q did his little breathing exercise, and then turned towards the target again. Luckily, she seemed to be wholly immersed in frowning at something on her phone, and was unlikely to have noticed what would have seemed like a psychotic break to other watchful patrons.

Eileen Ducheneaux, née O’Brien, was closer to fifty than forty, tall, with immaculately coifed and expertly dyed hair. Though her facial features were altered and covered in a thick layer of make-up that looked unnaturally white under the bar’s lighting, Q could see that she must have been a great beauty in her youth. She was still a very attractive woman, as he had noted before. (In the back of his mind, Q was relieved that she did not remind him of his Mum in the slightest.)

He searched his mind for what information and techniques Bond had decided to impart on him the morning before.

Married at 19. Family, estranged. Montgomery Wilbert Ducheneaux II (AKA "Little Douchy" to his old school pals) was fifteen years older with an eye for younger women…

A plan was beginning to form in Q’s mind, and he turned from the mirror so Bond couldn’t see his smirk.

* * *

the morning before

_Come to my office to begin your training_. _Don’t be late_ , said the text with which Bond had woken Q up at 6.15.

His office, his office! Q huffed as he stalked down the corridor.

In the back of his mind, he admitted to himself that at least part of his exasperation was caused by embarrassment. He’d had no idea that Bond even had an office in the building, and had to surreptitiously study the giant wall map in the lobby to get some sense of a direction in which it might lay. He simply refused to text Bond for instructions.

Naturally, though, the map proved extraordinarily useless, as it showed only the basic corridors and emergency exits. He was lucky that his loitering happened to have put him in the path of another 00, and after Cassie apologized for crashing into him, she unknowingly led him partway through the maze of a building to his destination.

 “Enter!”  Bond called jovially, when Q knocked on the seventh door in the F-section of the 4th floor. His very voice grated on Q’s ears. But Q swallowed his irritation, opened the door and greeted pleasantly:

“Good morning, 007.”

“I’d say it is an excellent morning, Quartermaster,” the infuriating man countered cheerfully. “Don’t you think so?”

“Quite,” Q bit off and seated himself at the desk across from Bond. He wondered how long it would take Bond to stop being so very smug about winning. He had never considered himself a sore loser, but the very sight of Bond’s grinning face with his horrid eyes veritably shining with that loathsome azure light, and those ears…

“What’s the plan for today?” he asked to interrupt his train of thought that would otherwise undoubtedly lead to murder. He'd attempted to capture the tone of an intrigued, capable student he vaguelly remembered being in uni. The smirk on Bond’s face showed that he wasn’t successful.

“Usually, a field agent begins with rigorous physical training to get to the peak of what human body is capable of,” Bond stated, and continued with an unholy grin: “Weight lifting, short distance, long distance runs, obstacle courses to train dexterity, flexibility. At the same time, they have to hone their skills in martial arts, tactics and strategic thinking. That’s all before they get on the ranges.”

Q merely blinked at him.

Inside, his mind was screaming at him about the pieces for the DB10 he’d found for sale at not entirely outrageous prices the previous month.

“Indeed,” he said simply, and when the muscles around Bond’s mouth twitched at his non-reaction, he knew that this time he succeeded in sounding non-plussed. This helped him to give Bond a friendly smile.

“Yes, however, as you already know, we do not have the time for all that. You will be going through a simplified version. Your physical training will be less rigorous, focused mainly on self-defense, and will be interjected with instructions on the more cerebral types of missions. That way, we will be able to get through the rudiments of the skills, and manage your five missions during the next fourteen days.”

 _Oh joy!_ Q thought unenthusiastically. Of course, he had no other wish in life than to be thrown around a gym like a ragdoll by a 00 agent.

“Sounds good,” he said out loud. Bond frowned, and gave him a long look. Then his face suddenly brightened, and he continued:

“I’m glad you agree.”

He stood up from his chair and walked towards the door. Q watched him uncertainly.

Was that it for today? Could he go now and get on with his work? Maybe this really wouldn’t be so-

“Come along then!” called Bond as he threw open the door. “We’ll begin at the gym with instruction on subtle investigative techniques.”

“Honeypots?!” Q yelped out before he could stop himself, then thought for a moment and added: “At the gym?”

“The clock is ticking and we have a lot to get through! A genius Quartermaster like you will have no trouble doing his cardio on the treadmill, and listening to a lecture on how to extract information from an unsuspecting target.”

 At Bond’s impatient gesture, Q got to his feet and began to follow behind the agent with the schematics for the DB10 flashing through his mind.

“There’s a good Quartermaster,” Bond drawled out, and Q clenched his teeth, all thoughts of the blueprints promptly disappearing.

It was enough to have lost to the condescending prat! He’d be damned before he forfeited as well!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's the sentence about the white cliffs of Dover that started this off. I heard it on QI series A, found it brilliant and worked off that. 
> 
> So yeah, I don't have an exact idea of what I'm doing :) This might end up having 5 to 6 chapters? We'll see... 
> 
> No worries though, the plot has started to take shape in my mind. I just wanted to get this out and get some feedback on it ...
> 
> Let me know what you thought down below or come chat with me on [Tumblr](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/about). I'll be very happy to read anything you might wish to write.
> 
>    
> Also, I have no idea why Q is suddenly Mallory's godson. It just kind of happened when he decided to call him Patrick...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised you a Q in the field, this is Q on a honeypot mission for MI6, giving it his best.
> 
> I'm trying something new here, guys, so let me know what you think. The plot is set, but **I'm open to overhauling the style, if you think it's not working.**

Q was not an arrogant man.

He’d say he had a healthy amount of self-confidence for someone who'd managed to become one of the executive heads of MI6 before the age of thirty.

Nevertheless, he was  _not_  arrogant, and thus well aware of his limitations. He knew he was stubborn, argumentative, and far too impatient with people.

Therefore, after the beginnings of a plan had started to form in his mind and he’d hidden a smirk from Bond, Q paused, reflected and re-evaluated.

It was only an N-level mission, nothing major, England wouldn't fall, nobody would care if he messed it u-

 _He_  would care and  _Bond_  would know! 

However, it was all well and good to decide that just because Bond expected him to fail spectacularly, he was going to succeed—and though Q  _did_  think he had a little something up his sleeve that might help him achieve his objective without too much humiliation on his part—the problem was, he _really_ wasn’t a people person, and he couldn’t act to save his life.

He knew how to get his computers to do what he wanted. That was straightforward. He could speak their language: he simply told them.

With people, you had to ask, and wait. And there were thousands of different ways to ask, hint, cajole, persuade; each more or less likely to get you what you wanted depending on the person and your relationship with them.

Q  _knew_  this. But that didn’t make it any easier for him to decide how to approach a stranger in a bar and manoeuvre her into a position where she might during post-coital bliss share if her husband happened to initiate contact with a well-known drug lord.

“Q?” came from the comm in his ear, a prolonged questioning sound, and Q realised he had been standing still again and apparently frowning at the strangely twisted (presumably decorative) metal thing on the wall for far too long.

 “Yes,” he answered and began to mentally calculate how much more insufferable Bond was bound to become if he asked him for advice.

_Eileen Ducheneaux, née O’Brien. 49. Married a rich older man at 19.  Estranged from her family. One son, 30, unremarkable._

Q thought back to the summers spent at his grandfather’s house in Ballinasloe, and swallowed his pride.

“Bond,” he began again and set out to walk slowly, and in what hopefully seemed like thoughtful appreciation, towards the decoration on the wall. He felt he had to pretend to be doing  _something_. “If we really need this information, I don’t think it’s the best idea for me to try to seduce her.”

There was a short silence on the other end, during which Q cursed himself for taking seriously what Bond undoubtedly considered a silly stunt. 

“Agreed, Quartermaster,” said Bond eventually with only a hint of a smile, and Q was relieved to note that he seemed to have decided not to be a complete prat about it.  

 _If you want information from the target, you have to give them something first_. _Now give me one more,_  Bond had informed him the previous day, and proceeded to count Q's following twenty crunches in an annoyingly cheery voice.

“What do you have in mind instead?” his self-styled handler prompted.

“It would take too long to explain, and I’d rather not say,” Q replied and with all his might tried to ignore the irony, and the un-disguised bursts of laughter in his ear.

* * *

two weeks previously

“What are you doing, agent?” Q yelped as he watched the small grainy figure that was Bond bash one of his attackers over the head with Q’s ultrasensitive vibrations reader (V.9), and then proceed to hurl it boomerang-style at another man. “The plan was to leave the base inconspicuously!”

“The plan’s changed,” Bond grunted in his ear, before he finally condescended to pull out his Walther and shoot them all. Then he picked up the priceless prototype (the very thing which had helped him crack the complex mechanical lock on the safe in a matter of seconds!) by the corner of its screen and continued on his way without a care in the world.

Q could hear the squeak the one remaining hinge made, as the screen swung piteously from Bond’s meaty paw.

“Would it kill you not to destroy my tech?” he wailed, and only just stopped himself from tearing at his hair.

Every single BLOODY MISSION!

“In this case, it very well might have,” Bond bit off, as he kicked his way through a closed door, dispatched two other henchmen, and continued to the extraction point.

“If you had followed the plan and taken the left turn instead of the right, you wouldn’t have even  _met_  the security guards!” Q hissed angrily, and banged on the Shift key to switch a security camera.

“You were directing me to their canteen. I could hear them through the door,” Bond spoke through gritted teeth.

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” Q cried out and threw up his hands.

Naturally, the blueprints weren’t fool-proof! It wasn’t like Q had the villain’s lair on Google Maps Street View.

“There. Was. No. Time,” Bond growled, and emptied his clip into a rapidly approaching group with semi-automatics. Then he once again changed direction and went to cram himself into the dumbwaiter to his left. 

Q closed his eyes. He wasn't going to ask; he swallowed and tried the breathing exercise Tanner had told him about.

It worked... eventually.

Therefore, when Q opened his mouth to speak next, what came out of his mouth wasn’t an ear-splitting screech. 

(After emerging from the elevator into the welcoming arms of a single security guard in the laundry room, Bond had decided to crown the day's efforts: poor Vinny's screen cracked from side to side; the last hinge died with a whimper against the man’s jugular. At least he bent to pick up the larger pieces). 

Instead, Q said with a sort of resigned despair:

“I bet you couldn’t go a single mission without destroying my equipment.”

* * *

Patrick stumbled when his foot got caught in the long chain strap of a miniature handbag which hung off the side of one of the luxuriantly bolstered booths.

There was a sound of distant laughter. Patrick paid it no mind, as he only just managed to catch his fall by gripping the edge of the table at which an elegant older woman was sitting.

 _Q had remembered a clever quote that said any disguise was just a self-portrait. He couldn’t act. He knew he couldn’t act. But if he_ weren’t _the Quartermaster of MI6, if they_ hadn’t _moved back to Surrey…_

Patrick let out a narrow “Oh!” in surprise, and clutched his phone to his chest. He turned to the lady and continued anxiously:

“I’m very sorry, ma’am. I hope I haven’t hurt you.”

The woman had started in her seat when he nearly crashed into her and was now staring at him in surprise, her own mobile phone clenched in her fist. Patrick smiled at her awkwardly and made to carry on on his way to the jacks, when his gaze fell to the floor and his eyes widened.

“Oh, I’m so very sorry!” he repeated, horrified, soft Irish Rs and Os rolling off his tongue. The woman’s eyes followed his, then they widened. The distant laughter had stopped.

“Oh no!” she cried out.

“I’m sorry,” Patrick said again, and bent to pick up her handbag. The elegant chain which had nearly caused his fall was torn out of its soft leather toggle. He winced internally. It looked like a very expensive bag.

 “I was reading a text from my Ma, and… never mind, that’s hardly helpful. I’m such an eejit! Jesus! Do you think it could be repaired? I will pay for it, of course! I will…”

_“That’s a Louis Vuitton, Q. This is not going to work.”_

_"Don't distract him, James!"_

He knew he was rambling, he felt a tiny bead of sweat slide down from his temple. He honestly hadn't seen the bag properly, the woman had it upside down on the seat next to her. But even though he’d never cared much for fashion, even he recognised that intertwined LV on the closure. His mind was racing to think if the bag cost more or less than a small family car. He could feel his cheeks grow cold as blood rushed from his head. 

It was over. He was done. If he had seen the clasp, maybe he wouldn't have... A Louis Vuitton! That was- what? Three thousand pounds? Ten thousand?! His vision blurred, and he swayed in place.

A warm hand pressed his forearm, and Patrick jumped a little in surprise.

 “Calm down, lad,” she said. There was a warm smile on her face that Patrick found himself reciprocating shakily. Her hand on his arm grounded him. “No need to fret over this old thing.”

 _“Ooooh!”_   _was followed by the sound of grown men giggling._

_"Shut up! Let him work!"_

 “But I-“ he began to protest. The lady stopped him with a wave of her hand.

“I have another four just like that at home. I insist,” she said, and pressed his arm warmly.

_“You might not have a hard time seducing her after all, Q.”_

_Q had to stop himself from growling at Bond._

There was an empty cocktail glass in front of the woman and her speech was beginning to slur, which was how  _he_  explained her equanimity to himself.

“If you really want to repay me, buy me a drink, and then you can crack on with whatever you were doing.”

 Patrick breathed out a sigh of relief, and flushed for a change as he felt guilt squeeze his stomach. The woman seemed like a genuinely nice person, and he had ruined her expensive bag.

Then he blinked as one phrase she had said and her tones resonated with memories of near-forgotten voices, rainy summer days, and hundreds of hooves in his mind. His face lit up with a grin. 

“Would you like me to bring you another daiquiri, or should I ask for a pint of Guinness?” he asked with a wild smile he hoped didn't come off as manic.

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise, but when she spoke to answer, it was with a softer smile and in a slightly different, lilting voice:

“Bring me a daiquiri. I can’t stand the taste of beer.”

Patrick nodded and made his way towards the bar. Besides the muted music video on the TV on the far wall, and the soft clinking of the glasses the barman was cleaning, the bar was silent. It was still early.

On his return journey, he contemplated whether he would be welcome if he sat down for a chat. He  _had_  missed talking to someone from back there. In the end, he decided to risk it.

_“It’s risky, what you’re doing. But it seems to be working for some reason.”_

_“I don’t understand that woman. He ruined her Louis Vuitton!”_

_“Be careful that you don’t slip up on the accent, Q.”_

_“Yeah. I don’t care how many she has at home-”_

“Here you are,” he said and slid the cocktail glass over to the lady. Then he pointed to the seat opposite. “Would you mind…?”

“Go on,” the woman answered with a smile. “You found me out, so you might as well stay and chat.”

“Oh sorry,” Patrick said for the fourth time that evening, and placed his pint on a shiny metal coaster. “I understand. I use a different accent at work as well. It’s better to fit in, in my line of work.” He grinned at her sheepishly.

“And what do you do?” she asked.

“I sell car insurance.” There was another burst of laughter.  He ignored it. “Patrick Kelly.”

“Eileen Ducheneaux,” the woman answered with a smile and offered her hand to shake. Then her smile turned maudlin, as she added, her tones crisp and BBC again: “I’m the wife of a very rich man.”

“Oh,” was all Patrick could think to say.

He wasn’t sure if Eileen might consider it an insult if he grimaced in sympathy. So he didn’t, and there was a long moment of excruciating silence when he took a long sip of his beer and searched his mind frantically for something to say. Should he share something personal as well?

_“Now’s your time to shine, Quartermaster…”_

“So you really don’t mind about the handbag?” was what he finally settled on. “Since your husband’s rich?” He grinned awkwardly.

_“Oh Christ.”_

_"That was horrible."_

_“Hey, she_ might _find it charming.”_

She did. Eileen threw her head back and laughed out loud. Patrick thought that it might have been a long time since she had done that, and felt even worse.

“That’s the least of the things I mind tonight,” she said bitterly when she stopped, and took a long sip of her daiquiri that almost emptied her glass.

“I think I know what you mean,” he admitted with a nod, and added quickly to explain: “My boyfriend had me dress up and come here for some grand surprise, I wish I could say I was surprised that he didn’t show.”

For a moment, there was silence, and Patrick began to feel queasy again. He had blown it, overshared, guessed wrong. He knew his strengths, and people skills were never one of them. This was turning into a disaster.

_The voices in Q’s ear concurred._

_“That was your plan, Q? She has a Catholic background-“_

_“Yeah...You might have yet pulled of a seduction if you hadn’t-“_

_“Guys, let him concentrate.”_

Then Eileen burst out laughing again, and they were off. He had guessed right, he wasn’t the only one who got stood up.

Eileen finished her drink, asked for another, and then another one, and in the meanwhile told Patrick that she and her husband were supposed to be going to see  _Le Nozze di Figaro_  at the National Opera (the best seats in the house!), but he'd been called off to an urgent business meeting and taken the tickets with him.

“What can be so urgent about soap?” she rolled her eyes dramatically, a portion of her hair had unspooled from the elegant French twist on the back of her head.

Apparently, “Douchy” did that all the time. Last Tuesday, he made her arrange a dinner party for his business partners, and then he never showed up. He said he was with a new investor, some old school chum Tommy Collins, but Eileen was sure his secretary had bought a new skirt and batted her eyes at him, and he had decided to follow her home.

Patrick felt his eyes widen at that and Eileen—even in her inebriated state—noticed and waved her hand as though she were swatting a fly.

“Oh, Douchy’s harmless. He did the same thing with me,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. “He’ll just stand under her windows.”

_"What?"_

_“Christ…”_

_"Even if she hadn't mentioned Collins, I would have had the Met keep a wary eye on 'Douchy'."_

Then Mrs. Montgomery Ducheneaux turned the full intensity of her glassy gaze on him.

“You said you were texting your Ma? Before? You’re a good boy, Patrick,” she said, patted his arm and he had to fight the impulse to squirm.

“Yes,” Q said, and there was a hiss in his ear. He cursed silently and continued in his best Irish accent with a self-deprecating grin:

“I try to be.”

Eileen remained silent and seemed to be looking at him with a sort of nostalgic smile on her face. There was a watery sheen in her eyes. Patrick swallowed, panicked and hurriedly babbled on:

“I’m trying to send her tickets to come see me and finally meet… Ja-acob, but…” he waved his hand. He was sure his face was scarlet, and hoped that his slip-up would go unnoticed.

Eileen nodded, and sipped her cocktail in inebriated contemplation.

“You know, me oul wan never forgave me for marrying an Englishman. 'You’re acting the floozie, making a holy show of yourself, Eileen,' she used to say to me,” she stopped and seemed to stare at him expectantly. Patrick had no idea what she wanted him to say. 

_“Good, she didn’t notice. You’ve got what we came for, now get out of there.”_

Did she expect him to deny it? Commiserate? Assure her of her good choice of a husband? What?

“I’m sure that’s not…,” he began to stumble his way to an answer, and could hear his accent slipping again.

“Tell me about your young man, Patrick,” Eileen interrupted him, then leaned over the table and stabbed his chest with her finger.  “Does the lad stand you up often? Don’t stay with him, if he doesn’t treat you right.”

“No, no,” Q-Patrick babbled, struggling to remember any of his past boyfriends. His mind drew a blank. “He is nice. He’s... often away on business... as a security consultant.”

_“What are you doing, Q?”_

“And when he’s home, does he take you out dancing? He should!” Eileen decided with a vehement nod of her head. A bit of her cocktail sloshed out of her glass and onto the dark polished wood of their table.

“We get enough excitement during the day.” 

Q’d managed to get into the speech rhythm of his childhood again, and breathed a sigh of relief at that.

He really liked Eileen. She seemed like a nice lady and he didn’t want her to find out that he had been deceiving her, so he improvised: “We actually prefer to stay at home with the cats, and get take out from the Greek place downstairs.”

“Greek! I love Greek food,” Eileen stated with the volume and level of the truly drunk. The barman glanced their way worriedly. “Is your place any good?”

“The best in the city, doesn’t deliver though.”

_“Just call his mobile, Bond, and get him out of there already.”_

A phone rang. Q realised in surprise that he had been clutching his phone in his hand the whole time.

“Oh,” he said and hurried to answer it.

“Why aren’t you at home, darling?” rumbled a familiar voice from the speakers. He felt the cold condensation on his beer glass send a shiver down his spine.

“Jacob?” he said with a strange croak to his voice.

 “Come home, love, I’ve fed the cats and made moussaka for dinner,” continued Bond in a flirty voice, and Q was going to kill him. He was going to kill him dead.

“You said to meet you at the Spinning Glass at half past seven. Where are  _you-_ dear?” he said, his accent barely hanging on in his sharp voice.

“That’s on Thursday, today’s Tuesday, you silly billy,” Bond cooed from the speaker into his ear. Q gritted his teeth, and was only glad that they had thought to mute the comms, so he didn’t have to listen to the echo of that horrible sound.

“You  _said_  Tuesday,” he insisted angrily, not really sure why.

“Oh go on, lad,” said Eileen with a drunken twinkle in her eyes. The bar was still nearly empty, so she had apparently heard every word. “No need for both our evenings to be ruined. Your Jacob’s even made you dinner.”

Q threw her a smile that was at least half-way genuine. Only because she was such a nice person; he was still bloody pissed off with Bond.

“I’m on my way, er- dear, I’ll just say bye to a friend,” he said into the phone grudgingly and hung up. Then he looked up at Eileen and concentrated on his Irish.

“I’m really glad to have met you, ma’am,” he said, and somehow managed not to stumble on his way out of the booth. “And again, sorry about your bag.”

 “Don’t mention it, Patrick. It was nice to chat with someone from home,” she said and squeezed the hand he had laid on the table for leverage. Q smiled and made his way to the exit.

At the door, he turned for the last time.

Eileen Ducheneaux, née O'Brien, with a creep for a husband and a good-for-nothing son, was looking at him with a misty-eyed smile, and waved her hand in a just-go-already gesture. He gave her one last awkward grin. Then he hurried out, hissing:

“What the hell was that, 007?”

“That was an emergency extraction, dear,” Bond crooned in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that the Patrick/Q switches weren't too confusing. :D I thought it might be one way for Q to get in character, and then show him start to break it.  
> There's one thing I'm worried about, though. Did the tone of chapter 2 match chapter 1?
> 
> Anyway, I had a blast writing this.  
>  **Let me know what you thought, all your impressions, hopes and dreams, either here in the comments or come say hi on[ Tumblr](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/about). ** Srsly, do come, I promise I'm a delight :D :D 
> 
>   **also, will be glad for any brit-picking and irish-picking :D**  
>  (they've told us in our phonology classes that the Brits have got much better at not stygmatizing non-RP accents/dialects, but I think that for people who sell insurance and toffs like Douchy's crowd, it would be better to fit in and sound as BBC as possible? any opinions from the British part of my audience? :D )
> 
>  If you prefer your Q and Bond less antagonistic, and with more feels, and your fics completed, I can recommend (and thus self-promote ;) ) my 6.5k one-shot [_Of Tinsel and Silent Nights_.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18929296)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #### 2019 007Fest sign-ups are open.
> 
> (It promises to be a really fun thing, and apparently you don't need to be a writer to participate.)  
> It's organized by the lovely people of the MI6Cafe on Tumblr. [Here's more info on it, and links to the sign-up sheet.](https://mi6-cafe.tumblr.com/post/185398496672/007-fest-sign-ups-are-open)

It was 9.30 in the morning, and Q didn’t sign up for this.

“Er,” he said and blinked owlishly at the pair on the training mat. Cassie had used Q’s fumbling at the gym door to extricate herself from 005’s stranglehold. Now she flipped their positions, and clenched his head between her thighs.

“Good morning, Quartermaster,” croaked Zaheer. Q noticed that he didn’t look too put out by his current position; one dark-skinned hand caressed a well-muscled thigh in yoga pants.

“Er- Hello.” Q really wasn’t at his sharpest that morning.

He’d had to physically stop his aching muscles from heading directly into Q-branch on automatic, when he had finally managed to drag himself out of bed and into MI6. He’d gone to the gym then, thinking that the most likely place to find his instructor/torturer.

Instead, he got the confirmation he had never wanted of all those “005 and 003 are totally shagging” rumours that circulated his branch.

“James isn’t here, Q,” Cassie informed him sunnily as she squeezed her legs, and 005 let out a grunt and added helpfully:

“He did say something about the big conference room, though.”

Q nodded and smiled weakly at a spot behind Cassie’s left ear. That seemed the safest place to look.

“Ta,” he’d only just remembered to say before turning in the doorway and closing the door behind him—rapidly. There were some things better left to the imagination, and some things Q preferred not to imagine at all.

He grimaced as he turned around. What was it with field agents and thinking that hand-to-hand was excellent foreplay? The month before, Jenkins had caught Travers and Patel all over each other in sweaty gym clothes when he went to get those extra laser sights. Just why…

Q’s internal rant trailed off when a sharp throb in his thigh drew his attention to the fact that there was, in fact, a two-flight staircase right in front of the gym that he’d have to negotiate. Again.

Oh yes, how could he have forgotten? It was the height of genius to put the gym five hundred stairs below where the lift ended! Because injuries during sparring never happened!

“Bloody Silva!” he growled as he dragged himself onto the third step. If it weren’t for him, Q wouldn’t be clutching at the handrail of these fucking Mordor stairs, and dragging his weight upwards like the feeblest of all feeble senior citizens from infomercials.

But actually, now that Q thought of it, it wasn’t Silva at the root of all his aching muscles!

 “Bloody…fucking Bond,” he grunted as he reached the landing. The entirety of his lower body was on fire.

Q hated them both. So, so much!

“Yes, Quartermaster?”

Q closed his eyes.

Naturally, Bond was standing by the lift, holding it open with his hand! Why not?! That was Q’s luck all over again! First Vinny got smashed up, and he had to open his mouth and make that bet, and it was nothing but pure chance that Bond got the Paris mission directly after that!

PURE CHANCE!

“I thought I was going to have to send out a search party. This is a bit late for you, isn’t it?” Bond’s voice was like gravel on a cheese grater. “Enjoyed a good night’s sleep after your first successful mission?”

Q sincerely hoped that Bond could read all the death his glare promised as he continued to drag himself upwards, having to try for a more elegant ascent with the agent watching.

He had hardly slept the night before, what with his whole body one big bruise and memories of Eileen’s kind, sad smile flashing in front of his eyes. He feared he was going to start screaming, if Bond opened his mouth now and delivered another one of those smug one-liners of his.

However, Bond’s luck appeared to be holding, as he wisely kept his mouth shut and waited for Q to finish shuffling the rest of the way up the stairs and to the lift.

* * *

the previous Wednesday

“Sorry!” yelped a particularly diminutive minion and only just avoided crashing into Bond. The tablet she had been staring at intently slipped out of her grasp and flew in a high arc above their heads

Bond shot out one hand to catch it, even as he pulled the bag in his left protectively towards his body. The girl took her tablet, screen flashing with pictures of women’s shoes, and darted a glance from Bond’s face to the gift bag.

“Ta,” she said, adding helpfully: “He’s in his office.” Then she sprinted away. 

Bond nodded gratefully, and patted his precious cargo. That was good to know.

He didn’t fancy searching through all the various labs, or checking under cars in the garage, or having to brave the bullpen.

Q-branch had always been the more mysterious and unpredictable of MI6’s departments. All the 00-agents knew that some days, you might find everyone at their desks, staring silently into their monitors, other times…  Bond remembered having to duck flying screwdrivers amid a flurry of papers, and cables used as lassoes once.  

But strangest thing—the thing that made all the agents walk around Q-branch with the utmost caution, usually reserved for only the direst of infiltration missions—was that it could all shift on a dime.

Also: the occasional weaponized robot.

Bond looked over the room with a wary eye.

Something in-between today.

With another nod, he turned on his heel and headed straight for Q’s office.

At his desk, the Quartermaster stood bent over what looked like detailed schematics of shoe soles with his back to the door.  For a moment Bond wanted to creep up behind him and tap him lightly on the shoulder.

He only just refrained. Not today.

Instead, he rapped on the door frame sharply, and cleared his throat for good measure. Still, Q jumped up and straightened so fast Bond could hear his back crack.

“Good morning, Quartermaster,” he greeted with a pleasant smile. It quickly grew into a grin as he watched Q’s eyes dance distrustfully from his face to the gift bag in his hands and back.

“I’d say it’s nearly noon, wouldn’t you, 007?” the Quartermaster said in his primmest tones that—Bond knew—he reserved only for him and 006. Neither he, nor Alec had the heart to tell him that the tone didn’t do nearly as much for making him appear unruffled as he thought.

Suddenly, Q grinned in a self-satisfied way.

Ah, the evil grin.

It stopped Bond in his tracks for a moment before the Quartermaster folded his arms over his cardigan-clad chest and said smugly:

“But then, you wouldn’t know, would you, Bond? You’ve lost your watch.”

That last sentence was said with such relish—each word, a tender caress—that Bond had to physically swallow the bark of laughter that tickled his throat.

This could have gone any number of ways, but…

“Oh dear me,” he answered with a proper feeling of dismay in his voice.

Q tensed; his eyes narrowed.

“I _do_ seem have misplaced my watch.”

Bond couldn’t help his grin, as he placed the large gift bag on Q's desk. He consciously lowered his voice to the tone he knew made all the aspiring villains and villainesses think very hard about considering Britain’s interests in their plans for world domination, and continued:

“But I’ve brought you a little something from Paris.”

Q eyed the bag as though he thought it might contain a bomb, or worse: Assam in tea bags.

“If you think that you can willfully mislay-“ he began, trying to sound posh and prim again. Bond pushed the bag towards him.

He couldn’t believe his luck; Q still had no idea.

“Go on, Q, open it.” The Quartermaster blinked at him suspiciously.

Bond turned on his most blameless expression and added:

“You wouldn’t refuse a gift, would you?”

Slowly, Q pulled the large bag towards him and peered inside. Then, Bond watched as he began to lay its contents out on the table.

One by one, four perfectly wrapped square boxes appeared on the table-top; silvery ribbons glowing in the bright monitor light.

Cassie had refused, and 005 had rolled his eyes, but in the end had helped him and Alec. Bond didn’t regret that bottle of Romanée-Conti in the slightest. They'd never have got the silvery plastic to curl just right without him.

Q stood speechless for a moment; then, a look of horror began to dawn on his face.

“Reporting back from my mission at the Finnish embassy, Quartermaster,” Bond said, revelling in Q’s glare. “You’ll find my gun, watch, USB drive, and tablet all present and accounted for.”

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the soft squeaking of chair-wheels, and chatter coming from the bullpen.

This had worked out even better than he had thought.

“That’s…” Q said finally, obviously searching for words, before settling on: “I am… pleased.”

 “I’m glad,” Bond murmured, suppressing the urge to laugh openly at the sour expression on Q’s face which said he was anything but. “Now, when can I expect the keys to my new car; or will I be seeing you tomorrow for your first lesson?”

Q’s head shot up, fists clenching at his sides involuntarily.

“You will get another car from my branch only over my dead body!” he hissed. “That was four million quid down the drain!”

Bond shrugged his shoulders to hide a wince. The episode in Cardiff _was_ unfortunate.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he countered.

 Q then growled something about “M” and “paperwork” and “delegating”; Bond wouldn’t have been able to stop his grin if he had tried. He nodded cheerfully and turned to leave:

“Let me know once you have your branch and paperwork in order, then. I’ll be in my office getting started on lesson plans.”

He walked out of the door without waiting for an answer.

He made it several steps towards the lift, before he realised that the bullpen was eerily quiet.

He tensed, and slowly turned around; an empty room stared back at him.

Bond felt his eyebrows rise a millimetre as he scanned the bullpen.

It wasn’t _completely_ empty but even the three figures at far-apart tables that still remained were standing up, pulling something black out of their drawers, and quickly heading for the back of the room.

“What the hell?” Bond muttered, and then jumped as from behind him came:

“Everyone’s going to Lab 5. To mourn Vinny.”

Bond swung around. A tall, stringy young man in dark blue overalls stood behind him, obviously waiting for him to move so that he could pass.

_Bond hadn’t heard him!_

“Oh,” he said, wrong-footed. “Vinny…”

He had never heard of any Vinny, but then again he had, at most, a nodding acquaintance with the majority of Q-branch’s occupants.

“Yeah, _Vinny_ ,” the man sent him a dark glare.

Bond blinked in surprise.

“The V.9 prototype vibrations reader? The one you obliterated during the Minsk mission last week?”

Bond blinked again and opened his mouth to speak. He wasn’t entirely sure what he had planned to say, but the man interrupted him:

“We’d just finished pulling the last data-“

“Hey Jenkins! You coming, mate?” a girl in a grey hoodie shouted from the other end of room.

“Yeah, just a sec!” ‘Jenkins’ shouted back; then he turned to Bond again.

Bond watched in silent amazement as the techie gave him a long measuring look.

He surreptitiously checked him for any long cables or screwdrivers.

After a few seconds, Jenkins rubbed at his chin tiredly and said: 

“Look, mate, we know you’re not just doing it for shits and giggles, but we’d been working on that reader for four years.”

Then he hurried off in the direction of the labs.

On. A. Dime.

* * *

 By the time Bond had shown him into the big conference room, Q had managed to calm down somewhat. The long elevator ride, during which no exertion was required and Bond had miraculously managed to restrain himself from any smug remarks, certainly helped.

Seeing a large steaming pot of tea and a plate of biscuits at the other end of the long table mollified him further.

Whatever fresh hell Bond had planned for him suddenly didn’t seem so bad when he knew he could face it with a cup of tea in his hand.

“From M’s own secret stash,” Bond informed him when he caught his questioning look.

“Moneypenny is a godsend,” Q sighed out as he forced his legs to speed up, hurrying past Bond to the other end of the room.

“So why this conference room?” he asked, once he had settled at the table and finished pouring himself a cup. The subtle earthy tones of fine Assam teased his nostrils as he went to take a sip.

Q felt the tension in his shoulders loosening and the beginnings of a moan somewhere deep within his chest. He brutally suppressed them.

Bond grinned suddenly and his whole face lit up.

Perplexed, Q blinked for a few seconds because for once Bond wasn’t being a smug git about the bet. He seemed actually, genuinely excited.

“It’s got the big screen,” Bond said and gestured at the enormous projection screen on the wall behind him.

Ah, Q had quite forgotten about his question at the first taste of that excellent tea.

He eyed the screen warily, suddenly suspicious that Bond was going to make him watch yesterday’s mission edited as a parody reel synched with some ridiculous song in the style of _Taking the Hobbits to Isengard_. (Such videos had been known to appear.)

But no, Bond seemed well rested. Neither he, nor Trevelyan had the skills to manage something like that so fast, and Q was sure his own people would never betray him like that. Also, there was Mallory’s order…

“Why do we need the big screen?” he voiced aloud.

…plus, Q supposed Bond _was_ being rather nice, getting him the tea and biscuits… Maybe he finally got the gloating out of his system…

“Because, Quartermaster,” Bond said, eyes sparkling like glaciers at sunset, “we’re going to play a game Alec and I like to call _Where’s Wally_.”

Q set his half-drunk tea down on the saucer with a clatter, his tenuous good mood evaporating _instantly_.

He heard the cheap china crack; the chip ping on the metal table-top, but at the moment he couldn’t care less. He dug his heels in the crappy corporate carpet, and pushed himself away from the table.

He immediately felt like an idiot for letting himself get so out of sorts about it all.

It was actually all in the spirit of the bet, and if _he_ had won, he absolutely would have made Bond sit down in Lab 6 all day every day of his downtime with that glue gun, glitter and fragments of _all_ the tech he’d _ever_ destroyed until he had created a large banner out of it all saying “I’m sorry”.

And Q was fully prepared to face ribbing about his chaotic flailing during yesterday’s honeypot. He expected it. But the idea of being made the laughing stock for the whole 00 division for the next week and a half, made him want to tear his hair out and scream.

“I know I lost the bet, Bond, but if you’re just going to take the piss…”

“I’m not,” Bond interrupted loudly, suddenly frowning. Q scoffed.  “I’m really not, Q.”

 He paused and gave Q the sort of puzzled searching look Q had seen him direct at particularly uncooperative marks during missions.

“Listen. You did a really good job yesterday with that honeypot. You’ve got good instincts, Q,” he said. Q blinked at Bond in surprise, and shot him a suspicious look.

He _was_ being serious.

“Your next mission will be to make contact with one of our informants. You’ve never met them before and you’ll need to be able to spot them. And since you are familiar with most of our British agents, I had Felix send me their old training tapes from Langley.”

Bond finished by shrugging his shoulders in a wholly uncharacteristic move.

Q stared at him, as his slowly awakening brain picked apart what he had just heard. He picked his rapidly cooling tea up again; then paused, put the cup down and said:

“You mean to say that when you and Trevelyan talk about ‘having to look for good old Wally again’ on the comms, _this_ is what you mean?”

“What did you think we meant?” Q had never seen Bond look so baffled.

”That you both share an incredibly incompetent friend and are being completely unprofessional by bringing him up during missions all the time? Nobody else calls it that!”

“Is that why you’ve been such a tit about Egypt?”

By the brief expression of absolute consternation on Bond’s face, Q knew that he hadn’t meant to say the last sentence at all. He couldn’t help the laughter that burst out of his mouth at the absurdity of the whole thing.

“Where’s Wally?!” He laughed so hard he spilt his tea. “Are you kidding me, Bond?”

Bond watched him with bemusement for a while; then threw a box of tissues at him. Q fumbled with it as he caught it and, his whole body still shaking with laughter, he began to mop up the spill.

“So you want me to what? Watch some tapes?” Q said when he was done.

Bond stopped shaking his head at him, and nodded.

“Some of it is real footage, some of it is staged. You need to watch the recordings carefully and trust your instincts to find your man,” he said.

 “Very well.” Q gave a short nod.

Then Bond went for the remote control to turn on the projector hanging from the ceiling, and Q derived a few moments of pleasure from watching him repeatedly press the on/off button and have nothing happen.

“You need to press it three times in quick succession,” he said finally. He could be friendly, too!

Bond narrowed his eyes at him, suspicious.

“Who pissed who off?” he asked, his well-honed instincts of an agent immediately catching on.

“Denbigh refused the request for graveyard shift overtime bonuses. Mission control took exception to that,” he answered. Bond switched on the projector and nodded sagely.

Q knew he did understand. Last year, Denbigh had tried to push through a directive that was supposed to save MI6 one mil a year by outfitting the agents with 20% less bullets. He’d based it all on dodgy research he had done behind Q’s back, the diseased penis!

“I’ll make them put it to rights after the joint board meeting of the SIS executives on Monday.”

 “Wouldn’t do to end a mission prematurely without achieving the objective,” Bond murmured meditatively as he clicked his way through his laptop. Then he paused and looked up:

“Won’t _you_ be there?”

Q blinked at him innocently.

“Naturally. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Not sure I’ll be able to do anything to help, though. The tech can’t be any good if the R&D’s underfunded.”

“I suppose I’ll excuse you from your morning classes, then,” Bond said with a smirk, having finally completed his search, and brought an old Windows Media Player app up on the large wall. “Now, pay attention. All you know is that you’re looking for a white man who’s been made to blow the whistle on his mates in the bomb-making business.” He clicked play.

Q watched as a video from a body camera (not dissimilar to the ones he was used to seeing from Bond and Trevelyan) unfolded a view of a crowded park on a sunny day.

He saw couples and families spread out on blankets, young people chasing each other with Frisbees and oval-shaped footballs, or sunbathing as the shaky image turned from left to right.

“Huh, this will actually be useful for when I’m running your missions as well,” he blurted out, and blushed at the quiet “you don’t say” which greeted his statement. “Anyway, what am I watching for….”

The agent with the camera walked leisurely forward and Q narrowed his eyes as he tried to compensate for the slightly blurred, silent image.

“…a white man… that doesn’t help me much… he doesn’t really want to inform, so would he be nervous? …but if he’s used to making bombs, he needs steady nerves, damn…”

The agent stopped, and the video cleared up. They had moved closer to the Frisbee-throwers and sunbathers.

“Oh! But if he’s in the park for a meet-up, he’d need to be someone you can approach!” Q nearly shouted with the sudden epiphany. The tea had begun to work its magic at last. “So no one who’s lying on the grass catching the sunshine… naturally, no one who’s come with a group…”

That ruled out nearly everybody in the picture, except for an elderly lady with a large basket bag, who seemed quite content to sit alone on a bench surrounded by at least fifteen pigeons she kept feeding. Q gave her a suspicious onceover; then shook his head. An unwilling mole wouldn’t go to that much trouble.

Then the camera moved to the right, away from the sunbathers, and revealed another line of park benches. There was a homeless man with lots of bags and a wide circle of unoccupied seats around him. Again, too much trouble… And…

“Oooh, that’s him!” Q cried out, pointing at a young man in a burgundy pullover and tight red jeans. He kept mangling the four red long-stem roses he held in his left hand, constantly checking his watch.

He looked away from the projection to find Bond grinning at him.

“Are you sure, Quartermaster? He could just be waiting for a date,” he teased. Q scoffed.

“Come off it, Bond, who’d wear that for a date?” Bond’s raised eyebrow indicated Q’s own ensemble of his favourite, well-worn brown cardigan and dark green suit trousers. He fought a blush.

“We are not on a date, Bond!” was what left his mouth.

Why did he say that? Obviously, they weren’t on date!  

“And anyway… nobody gives an even number of flowers except at funerals.”

Bond’s eyes sparkled with his smile.

“Well spotted, Quartermaster, even if some of your logic might be flawed.” Q rolled his eyes at him. “Shall we do another one?”

“Let’s,” Q agreed, and only just stopped himself from beaming at Bond and making grabby hands, momentary embarrassment shoved to the back of his mind.

This was actually fun!

Another file opened on the screen showing an American old style diner.

“You’re looking to make contact with a female ex-KGB agent who came over to the Americans shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain. She’s a master of disguise and an excellent cook. Now, Quartermaster, where’s Wally?”

* * *

In a dingy pub bathroom Q stared at his reflection in a mirror spattered with remnants of liquids best left unexamined.

He fiddled with his earpiece and pushed a pair of thick-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. The prescription wasn’t quite right, but he supposed he couldn’t complain since these were the lesser version of their cutting edge younger sibling-prototype.

He grimaced at the pair of crossed yellow hammers on the dark red hoodie Cassie had dressed him in. Zaheer had suggested that giving Q a dramatic uppercut with asymmetrically shaved sides would help him fit in better. Luckily, both Bond and Cassie agreed with Q that that was absolutely out of the question.

The video session in the conference room had been a lot of fun, but really only a speed course. After a rigorous gym torture the following morning, Bond had thrust a file into his hands and herded him towards Cassie, saying that the window of opportunity on that particular mission had begun closing, and they’d need to move up the schedule.

Trevelyan had left on a mission to New Zealand, so it was only the 00s home on medical leave, Cassie and Zaheer, who helped Bond prep him and dress him up. After initially signing his approval for Q’s unconventional training, M had backpedalled and additionally decided that it would be best if the missions were kept quiet and completely out of Q-branch’s purview.

Q had agreed wholeheartedly and without hesitation. He hadn’t fancied giving any of his subordinates blackmail material.

“Now tell me again: what’s the code, agent,” Bond said in his ear. Q made certain to be looking straight into the mirror when he rolled his eyes at him.

“You just like to hear me say it,” he said with a hint of a whine to his voice.

“This is standard procedure to ensure you remember it. You know that, Q,” Bond _lied_ , not even bothering to hide his glee. “And I will remind you that talking back to your handler gets you marked down.”

Q rolled his eyes again and complied:

“I’ve got a 9-inch tongue, love, and can breathe through my ears.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you've guessed it; the code is lifted from QI season one again. :) I wish I could say I came up with this horrible, awful, disgusting pick-up line, but I didn't.  
> also,
> 
> ####  [GUESS WHO SIGNED UP FOR THE JULY 007FEST! ](https://mi6-cafe.tumblr.com/post/185398496672/007-fest-sign-ups-are-open)
> 
> Yep, that's right, [this girl!](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/about)
> 
>  **CONCERNING THE UPDATING:** I'll be starting an extra-semester screen writing workshop come next week, so I'm not sure I'll be able to update much before the beginning of July. (I'll be attempting to write an Arthurian heist movie, titled Lake's Eleven. Check out my tumblr, link above, if you want to hear me complain/fangirl/rave about it.)  
> HOWEVER, I'm having so much fun with _Acta non verba_ , I figure it deserves decent editing. So yeah... we'll see. I hope you like the story well enough you'll stick with it. ;) 
> 
> **Please, I beg of you, good people of AO3, leave comments.** It's not just that I like to get my writer's ego stroked by all the nice things you say (although that definitely is a factor, and please don't stop), I also appreciate criticism to my writing style, content, pace, tone,... you name it, you can criticise it. I'm not saying I'll be happy that you didn't like it, but I'll be glad to know. I just want to learn, folks. ;)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all the lovely people at MI6 Cafe chat who helped me brainstorm for this chapter, in particular to **boffin1710** for providing information on London, and to **solarmorrigan** and **10kiaoi** for helping me realise a massive flaw in my original plan. 
> 
> TW for slightly homophobic language.

Running faster than he had ever done in his adult life, Q felt every thud his feet made on the hard pavement. The cheap Adidas knock-offs he’d unearthed from the back of his wardrobe for the mission did nothing to dull the tingling sensation running up his shins.

 “Get ‘im, Arto! Get that lil’ freak!” roared one of the group behind him. Q risked a look over his shoulder.

“Oh fuck.” They were definitely gaining on him.

Q did get a bit of a head-start when he’d thrown his pint, beer and all, at the leader, but any advantage that had gained him was swiftly dissipating. From the way his own face and neck were starting to itch as the cool evening air glued the mess of Cuba Libre onto his skin, he knew he had just added more incentive for the men to chase him down.

“Get me out of here, Bond!” he yelled into the night, not caring if the passers-by all heard. The glasses were fried, but his earpiece was still working. He hoped.

“ _Working on it, Q_ ,” bit off a tense voice in his ear that Q would have been relieved to hear, if Bond had actually given him any useful information. There was a faint screech of tires from the comms.

Where did they park the bloody car, for fuck’s sake!

“Oi, you little creep!”

Q’s lungs were burning with the effort to not lose speed. Arto and his group were definitely getting closer. Q tried to tell himself that he was at least three stones lighter than the smallest of their group. That had to be an advantage.

“Any day now, Bond!” he gasped out. His ear piece crackled. Bond on the backseat was presumably thrown against the window.

_“You need to get to East Street.”_

“I can’t see their bloody names, Bond!” Q screeched, only just avoiding crashing into a trash can as he ducked into a side street. He could only hope it wasn’t a cul-de-sac.

_“Right, shit, right. I can’t see you. The map with the tracker’s frozen.”_

It was a cul-de-sac.

Another screech of car tires; then Cassie’s calm voice: _“Where am_ I _going, Bond?”_

_“OK, shit, I see you now! Cassie, turn her around. Q, there’s a lane, between the buildings. Head there, then turn right. Fuck.”_

_Screee-snickt-eeech!_

_“My sister won’t be pleased.”_

 “I can see it!” Q made his lungs gasp out, and he ran. Q ran like his life depended on it. Which it very well might…

_“Stop going on about your bloody sister, Zaheer!”_

_“Well, it’s her car, Cas.”_

_“It’s a shite car, and you can’t drive for shit so shut your mouth.” Screech! Honking._

_“Shut up, the both of you! I need to focus!”_

Right now, Q couldn’t say that he was grateful for the morning on the treadmill in the gym. The initial burst of adrenaline over, he could feel his muscles tiring.

Also, he had completely fucked up the entire mission.

* * *

 earlier that evening

Q started in his seat at the bar when from his left came the unmistakable bang of a head hitting hard wood, and a voice whining out:

 “Ouch, Arto. What did I say?”

“I said not to call ‘em that, Mick,” barked another man, presumably Arto, who sat in the center of a group of young men in tracksuits and baseball caps. “It ain’t right.”

 _“Everything alright, Q?”_ intoned Bond from his earpiece. Q smiled slightly.

“Fine,” he mumbled into his pint glass. It reassured him to know that the agents in the car were aware that, West Ham hoodie, or not, sport bars really weren’t his scene.

He was glad that Bond had thought to warn him not to do his Irish accent, as that had been his plan to “get into character” again. Apparently, there had been a rugby match that Ireland had won that the bar’s occupants might not be too happy about.

Q was just about to go back to surreptitiously scanning his surroundings for his contact when the same whining voice from his left continued:

“Sorry, mate, you know I ain’t got nothin’ against your lil’ bruv. But can he whistle?”

Q blinked, and turned to watch the group from the corner of his eye.

Based on the nature of the code phrase, and the meet-up place, Q had deduced that he was supposed to be watching out for a woman, presumably alone. This had him second-guessing himself.

Something so bizarre...

“’S that got to do wiv anythin’?” Arto asked what Q himself was wondering.

“Well, ‘em h o m o s e x u a l s, yeah?” the man with the whining voice pronounced the word carefully, and Q felt his eye-brows climb up his forehead. “They can’t whistle, innit? They’s said so on telly last night.”

 “Wha’? ‘Cause of all the cock in their mouth?” came a genuinely perplexed question from one of the others. Arto slapped both of them over the back of their heads.

 Q couldn’t stop himself from snorting out loud.

 _“Alright, Q?”_ Bond asked again; Q could hear the laughter in his tone.

Arto’s voice calling both his friends “fuckin’ morons”, the whiny guy protesting that “’s that Fry bloke as has said it, an’ he’s bent,” and further head-slamming must have been loud enough to be heard over the comms in the car.

“Everything’s fine,” he answered, and turned his attention away from the group of young men, who had resumed staring at one of the big flat screens above the bar.

 _“Any idea about Meredith?”_ Bond asked.

“Nothing so far,” Q answered immediately, a shiver running down his spine at the name.

“The contact… it’s Meredith,”Bond had said when he handed Q the mission file, smirking all the while with his blue eyes. 

Naturally, Q had immediately dropped all the papers. 

He had never met Meredith, she was well before his time as Quartermaster. But he certainly  _knew_ of her.

Meredith was… well, not exactly a household name—the organization being what it was, Q was certain that the majority of SIS had never heard of her—but by necessity, there  _were_  some people in the know, and some people with the security clearance to be able guess, and among them, Meredith had become something of a legend.

She was a phantom. It was said that she’d once infiltrated a Serbian military base dressed as the general’s grandfather, and that her information had put a stop to not one, not two, but four separate bombings of the Buckingham Palace,  _and_  Balmoral Castle, and that she learned all about the attacks through her job as either a hairdresser, a lion tamer, or a bee keeper. Those were all rumours, of course.

Only five people in all of MI6 knew that Meredith was an 00-agent, who’d retired because she wanted to start a family, had actually managed to stay retired, and now worked as a pilates instructor.

Except for one agent, nobody knew what Meredith actually looked like. All the photos had been burned.

Q focused his attention on the people around him again.

The blonde girl behind the bar, who had brought him his beer, seemed like a genuine bartender. She was greeting some of the people who came up to order drinks by name.

To his right was a line of mostly empty bar stools. There was one couple in their thirties, who were eating greasy chips and doing their best not to look at each other’s sleep deprived faces; at the corner sat a balding, middle-aged man, who seemed to be muttering angrily into his pint.

There were no solitary occupants at the tables, only groups.

Analysing a video feed was really something quite different to being in the actual place with the actual people, and having to make a snap decision on whom to approach. With a code phrase like that, Q really didn’t want to be wrong.

Bond had sworn that the code was well-established and thought up by Meredith herself to distinguish real agents from genuine creeps who would try to chat her up in bars. Q wasn’t sure if he believed him.

_“So, Bond, when you said the window of opportunity was closing?” “Meredith’s going on holiday to Maui on Friday.”_

Q huffed out a small laugh.

 “I don’t think she’s here yet,” he muttered quietly into the comm, as he picked up his beer, and went to turn to provide a view for the camera in his glasses. “Can Zaheer confirm?”

 _“I don’t think so either,”_ came from the com background. Of all of MI6, 005 could probably claim to know Meredith the best. _“And don’t try to cheat, Quartermaster, you need to learn how to spot an agent…”_

“I’m no…” Q began to defend himself, but then had to stop when, to his right, somebody slid onto the bar stool two seats removed. Q needed to be inconspicuous, and muttering angrily to himself where people could see really wouldn’t help his case.

Out of the corner of his eye, Q saw the woman wave to get the bartender’s attention; light from the low-hanging bar lamps caught in the numerous zippers on her jean jacket.

Q’s eyes widened when he caught sight of the grey T-shirt with a large, white number under it, and her leopard-print shorts. With this much make-up on her face, he couldn’t hazard a guess as to her age, she could have been anywhere between 16 and 35. Maybe, if he heard her voice…

But no, this couldn’t be _her_. She looked just like one of the girls Q had spotted at the corner table by the window. In fact, Q was sure he had seen her with them. This wasn’t Meredith; just some girl enjoying a girls’ night out with friends.

His ear-piece was silent, and Q knew better than to ask for advice now.

He looked back down at his beer glass; he noticed her shoes.

If he hadn’t listened to Cassie complain about the lack of comfortable, practical footwear for fieldwork, if he hadn’t done the research and given the assignments for further experimentation and development to Lina’s lab himself, Q probably wouldn’t have paid any attention to them.

But he had, and he did.

These were no cheap knock-offs. They might have looked casual, but Q had stared at similar of their make long enough to know just how perfect the ergonomics were for running; ideal for a former agent who wouldn’t want to be caught in a tough spot without being able to get away quickly.

Q’s breath hitched in his throat. This was Meredith.

It had to be!

He knew he had to announce his findings to Bond on the comms.

It needed to be done quickly before she got her drink and went away; Q knew she wouldn’t linger. Only suddenly he couldn’t quite remember the correct phrasing.

Was it, “target acquired”? That didn’t seem quite right. But he needed to move fast…

“She’s here,” was the strange muffled squeak that came out of his mouth. He didn’t even care if Bond’s voice shook with laughter, as he answered: “Very well. Initiate approach, agent.”

Q grabbed his pint, and cursed the horrible habit of placing twisted metal footrests on high bar stools; then, trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling a cuff of a hoodie sleeve soaked in spilt beer produced, he made his way over to Meredith.

She sat with her back to him and made no sign that she had noticed him.

Q took a deep breath.

“I’ve got a 9-inch tongue, love, and can breathe through my ears,” he announced at an unnaturally high volume.

Shit, oh shit!

He could feel the eyes of the immediate surroundings turn to look at him.

The bartender, who had just come over with the woman’s order, stared.

Probably only that group of girls at the window hadn’t heard.

Suddenly, Q came to the terrible realization that Bond might not, in fact, have been laughing at the strange sound of Q’s voice, but because he had made a horrible mistake.

Bollocks!

The shoulders of the young woman at the bar—Meredith, Q still hoped fervently—tensed, and she began to turn around in her seat.

Q gulped.

Then he gasped in surprise as the entirety of the glass the woman—probably not Meredith, Q was slowly coming to accept—had just received ended up flying at his face. It was sticky and smelled of rum and coke.

Q licked his lips, and blinked fuzzily behind his wet glasses. The comm was silent.

 “You can just fuck right off, you creep!” the woman—definitely not Meredith—growled dangerously.

“I’m sorry, miss, it was a mistake. I thought you were a friend of mine. It’s a joke we…” Q trailed off, quailing under the twin stares of disgust the bartender and not-Meredith were throwing his way.

When Q had planned his excuse for this eventuality, he hadn’t realised it might not be sufficient, or believed. An ice cube which had caught in the collar of the hoodie fell to the floor with a soft clink. 

Q swallowed, and exhaled.

He had no idea what to do or say to be able to justify sitting in the bar and waiting for his contact.

This couldn’t have gone any worse.

“The fuck did you just say to my girl?” came from behind him, and Q realised that it, in fact, could go and would get worse.

He whipped around to find Arto and his friends in a variety of threatening poses behind him.

 _“Oh shit,”_ Bond cursed in his ear, so suddenly Q flinched. _“Abort, Q, abort the mission!”_

“I didn’t… I wasn’t…” Q was shaking his head, coke-soaked hair sticking in clumps to his face.

They were all absolutely massive.

“The perv wasn’ talkin’ to me, Arto,” he heard the bartender say.

Nice of her, Q thought faintly, to put the matter straight.

Only Arto didn’t look mollified in the slightest.

 _“Yes, he needs to get out of there, fast,”_ said Zaheer.

“That don’ matter, yeah. He ain’t got no business talking to _any_ lady like that,” Arto announced.

This seemed to be a signal for the others to cancel their threatening poses, flex their muscles and move towards Q.

Q’s mind blanked; he stood petrified.

_“Run, Q!”_

_“Get out of there!”_

_“Throw your beer, and run, Q!”_ advised Cassie. With clear instructions in his head, Q hurled his pint at Arto, and, feet almost slipping in an icy puddle, shot away from the bar to the door.

“Are you outside? Please tell me, you’re outside!” he whisper-yelled at Bond as he ran.

_“No free parking places, you’ll have to meet us in Content Street.”_

“I don’t know where that is!” Q yelled out loud.

He shot past a couple entering the bar, and stopped right outside the door.

“Left or right, Bond?”

Suddenly, he heard the rambling of a stampede behind him.

“Oh shit!” he yelped out, and bolted right, just as Bond announced: _“Left.”_

“Heading right,” he gasped, as he ran. “They’re coming after me, Bond.”

“Oi! You’ll pay for that, you lil’ bastard!”

* * *

Q had thought that his manoeuvring in the blind street might shake off his pursuers. He’d been wrong.

The chivalrous Arto and his group of knights in shining tracksuits were clearly locals, and knew the area much better than he. But it did seem that the negotiation of the narrow entrance to the lane had slowed them down somewhat.

Q ducked out of the lane, and hesitated.

Did Bond say left? He didn't have a long time to decide-

_“Great! Now turn right, and go straight. See the big lights? We’ll meet you in the bigger street.”_

Q gasped in a much needed breath and forced his legs to move again.

_“Faster, Cassie!”_

“You see ‘im, Mick?!” Arto and friends had emerged from the alley.

“I see ‘im, bruv!”

Q groaned in pain, and sped up.

There did seem to be a bigger blur of lights in the direction he was heading, and it wasn’t far. If there were shops still open, maybe he could…

“That fucker, why is he so fast!” roared someone breathlessly behind him.

Q didn’t think he was running very fast. Each of his legs had to weigh at least twenty pounds.

And they were getting closer. He could hear them.

_“We’re here, Q, I can see you. Come on!”_

Q realised that the bright red smudge which had suddenly appeared at the mouth of the street was Zaheer’s sister’s Astra.

“Thank fuck,” he gasped out and, with a final burst of speed, sprinted towards the car.

 _“You’re almost here, Quartermaster! Come on!”_ Cassie cheered.

Q ran.

He flew. 

The heaving breaths of Arto's group grew fainter.

He could see the backdoor opening and a blond head ducking back inside.

“The fuck?! The creep’s got ‘imself a get-away car?!” Arto roared his outrage, as Q jumped into the backseat head first; Cassie whooped, and took off before he could even close the door.

“Shut the door, Q,” 005 said reproachfully from the front seat, accompanying the steady beeping and flashing signal light on the dashboard. “It’s my sister’s car.”

“We know it’s your sister’s car, Zaheer! We saw when she lent you the keys!” Cassie shouted.

Q scrambled to get off Bond’s lap to reach the door handle.

It took him several tries, but finally the metal clicked in the correct places, and the beeping stopped.

Q threw himself into the seat and hunted for his seatbelt, all the while listening to 003 and 005 bicker in the front seats, and trying to stop the tears rapidly filling his eyes.

He could feel Bond watching him.

What a fucking waste!

“Well, I still think I should have told her about taking out the child car seats,” Zaheer was musing.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, why?!” Cassie threw both her hands into the air. “We’ll put them back. She won’t know.”

“Oh, she’ll know,” Zaheer predicted darkly.

Sweat pouring down his face, Q took off his sticky, now useless, wrong-prescription glasses, closed his eyes, and concentrated on breathing in and out; his heart beat was beginning to slow by degrees.

What a cluster fuck…

“You alright, Q?” Bond asked quietly.

Q didn’t open his eyes, just nodded firmly. Frustration had stopped stinging his caruncle; exhaustion was beginning to set in.

Of course, he was fine.

This wasn’t anything urgent, Meredith would make contact again after she returned from Maui.

It was only an N-level mission.

Which Q had failed. He didn’t get the coordinates.

He was abso-fucking-lutely _fantastic_.

“Alright then, she’ll know we took out the seats, so what?” Cassie was saying exasperatedly.

“She’ll ask me why I did it.”

“Check your back pockets,” Bond spoke again, eyes dark and quiet. Q glared at him tiredly, and then slowly raised himself in his seat and complied.

Because why the fuck not.

“You said you were going shopping. So you’ll tell her you needed the space for the shopping bags that didn’t fit into the boot!” Cassie growled out.

“She’ll ask why I was getting so many things since I live alone and travel all the time,” 005 was shaking his head sadly. “She always knows when I’m lying.”

Q raised his left hip off the seat sluggishly, and began to twist his hand awkwardly to reach into his back pocket.

“HOW ARE YOU A SECRET AGENT, HASSAN?!” Cassie was shouting. “I mean, what does your sister think you do?!”

It was empty.

Naturally. He hadn’t worn these jeans in ages.

Bond's eyes seemed to glow softly for a moment as the light of a street lamp they'd passed illuminated the pocket of shadows by his headrest.

Q huffed out a sigh and went to try the other side.

His throat was dry, and he wished he had thought to take some water with him.

The best laid plans...

Sitting down, Q heard a faint crinkling noise.

“Oh, she knows I work for MI6,” 005 was admitting, proudly. “She found out during my first week of training.”

Out of the right back pocket of his old jeans, Q drew out a small piece of paper that hadn’t been there when he’d put them on.

“How…?” he croaked, starring at the two lines of numbers. The stinging in the corner of his eyes had returned. “That’s the coordinates! But how…”

Something nudged him in the arm; Q looked up. Bond was beaming at him and holding out a bottle of water.

Q blinked, dazedly. 

The condensed water droplets on the plastic shone like the twin blue stars in Bond's eyes. Beautiful.   

Q’s arm shot out and clutched at the water before he even realised what he was doing.

“That _was_ Meredith, you know,” said Zaheer, and Q became conscious of the fact that the two agents in the front had stopped their argument, and turned to watch him and Bond.

Q blinked at him uncomprehendingly.

 “She always does this,” Zaheer continued, a small, fond smile playing on his lips. “It’s her little joke. She's retired, so it’s a milk run, right, so they send her junior agents, and she either slaps them or throws her drink in their face, and watches them flounder. It’s fun.”

“It’s fun,” Q repeated, feebly.

“Yes,” Bond admitted sheepishly. Q turned to glare at him. “Usually, there’s no Arto involved.”

“Yeah, we didn’t expect Arto,” Cassie agreed, her smile chagrined in the rear-view mirror.

“She must have liked you. She only throws her drink at the ones she likes,” 005 assured him, as though that was where Q’s problem lay.

Hair, a giant coke infused mess, sweat pouring in buckets from every pore on his body, Q stared at the three agents in the car.

They were all looking at him with the expectant expressions of people who have told a fantastic joke and are waiting for their slow audience to get the punchline.

Q could feel a not-altogether-hysterical giggle rise in his throat like a hiccup. Savagely, he clutched at the wet water bottle and swallowed against it.

By the sudden brightening of the agents’ faces, he could tell that he hadn’t managed to suppress it completely. The whole thing _was_ , now that it was over, actually sort of funny.

Nevertheless, Q gave the bottle cap a vicious twist and swore he’d have vengeance:

“I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But one day I’m going to get you for this! Each and every one of you!”

Then he upended the cool water over his head, and laughed as 005 started squawking about his sister, her car, and her car’s upholstery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, I had so much fun writing this! :D Anyway, you can probably guess, there's a line inspired by Alan Davies. A cookie if you can guess which one :D 
> 
> And the first person who can tell me where the line about gay people not being able to whistle originally comes from gets a fic of their choosing for July Fest. :D 
> 
> I hope you liked this, guys. Let me know what you think about Q's "training" and where I'm taking the story, either here, or on [Tumblr](https://christinefromsherwood.tumblr.com/about).
> 
> #### ABOUT UPDATING:
> 
>  _Acta non verba_ will need at minimum another three chapters. Which I won’t be able to get down before the screenwriting class, which starts this week, ends on the 3rd July… :( 
> 
> But the story’s shaping up nicely and according to plan, so the rest of the typing is going to happen in July, nicely coinciding with the [007Fest.](https://mi6-cafe.tumblr.com/post/185424053560/007-fest-sign-ups-are-open) (For which you should consider signing up! There’s still time till the 15th. It’s going to be a blast, I can tell!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is highly recommended that any new-comers start at the beginning :D For those of you who, during the course of June forgot what the previous chapters were about, here's a little refresher. 
> 
> _earlier in the story:_  
>  “I have, apparently, been insufficiently sympathetic to the plight of our field agents.”  
> “You’ve lost your bet with Bond, I take it,” Mallory decided to cut to the chase. He might have known!
> 
> * * *
> 
> There was a sound of distant laughter. Patrick paid it no mind, as he only just managed to catch his fall by gripping the edge of the table at which an elegant older woman was sitting.  
> Q had remembered a clever quote that said any disguise was just a self-portrait. He couldn’t act. He knew he couldn’t act. But if he weren’t the Quartermaster of MI6, if they hadn’t moved back to Surrey…  
> Patrick let out a narrow “Oh!” in surprise, and clutched his phone to his chest. He turned to the lady and continued anxiously:  
> “I’m very sorry, ma’am. I hope I haven’t hurt you.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> “What the hell?” Bond muttered, and then jumped as from behind him came:  
> “Everyone’s going to Lab 5. To mourn Vinny.”
> 
> * * *
> 
> “You mean to say that when you and Trevelyan talk about ‘having to look for good old Wally again’ on the coms, this is what you mean?”  
> “What did you think we meant?” Q had never seen Bond look so baffled.  
> ”That you both share an incredibly incompetent friend and are being completely unprofessional by bringing him up during missions all the time? Nobody else calls it that!”  
> “Is that why you’ve been such a tit about Egypt?”
> 
> * * *
> 
> “Get ‘im, Arto! Get that lil’ freak!” roared one of the group behind him.
> 
> * * *
> 
> “I don’t know when. I don’t know how. But one day I’m going to get you for this! Each and every one of you!”  
> Then he upended the cool water over his head, and laughed as 005 started squawking about his sister, her car, and her car’s upholstery.

“…Quartermaster, put your back into it.” Puce sun rose on the twin mountain lakes; the water-pearl drops shimmered, struck an anchor into his ventricles and pulled. “Squeeze harder.” But Khufu’s pyramid towered over the azure canals and San Marco, and he couldn’t say _I don’t want to hurt you_ with the pink letters _defensa personal_ _para mujeres_ _2006_ wrapping around his own throat, and pressing down until the tendon in his neck was set on fire and garlic and dill burnt the roof of his mouth. Two rusty Boeing wings grew from his shoulders; he hurtled towards the pale cliff-face; closer and closer he knew he couldn’t see his eyelids were sown shut he couldn’t open his eyes his wings were screaming shrieking twisting metal his eyes shut and bloody

What.

Q opened his eyes, and saw nothing and remembered to breathe, and why were his blankets gone, his feel were cold.

He tried to suck in a breath because important, but his throat felt like a burning reed.

Rib-squeezing coughs sent him crashing against a cold, damp stone.

He flinched and rolled away, but his cheek landed in a pool of lumpy, putrid something that he, with a hoarse groan of disgust and a painful lurch of his stomach, identified as his own vomit.

“What,” Q tried to say; the word came out like a rasp.

He didn’t understand and his mind was slow, and he didn’t understand and his mind wouldn’t help him, and he didn’t understand, and his mind suddenly knew it was not the possibility of food poisoning that had his stomach in a vice.

Fear smelt like vomit and yesterday’s take-away.

Q’s lips curled around a name and, for a moment, a flash of betrayed anger spiked through his chest, and cleared his mind of fear somewhat. That was before the unassailable certainty that this was something James would never do soothed the hurt, and opened the door for real panic to set in and hammer at his heart.

Except for the blinking red pinprick of the camera light suspended in the darkness high opposite, everything was dark.

Q had no idea where he was, how he’d got there, or how long he had been there.

But he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, to the very tips of his shaking fingers, that Bond had nothing to do with this. The afternoon at the gym had made that perfectly clear.

Bond had scoffed: _“They give you executives lectures on what to do if you’re kidnapped. But they don’t bother teaching you how to avoid getting attacked on the street and kidnapped in the first place.”_

Q’s brain was not so saturated in drugs and fear that he couldn’t see the irony, even if he didn’t find this particular brand of irony very amusing.

Carefully, he felt along the dull pain in the tendon on the left side of his neck, trying to find what was wrong with it.

He touched a spot towards the back; the memory of dull pressure and searing pain had him jerking his hand back suddenly.

The capillaries there must have burst under pressure when they injected him. Whoever they were.

And whoever they were, they were watching.

Another surge of anger lit a pathway in his brain, and Q’s mind was clearer for it. He refused to give them any more satisfaction.

He braced a trembling hand on the damp stonewall to his right, and slowly raised himself to his feet. His knees and muscles screamed; his stomach swam, but Q managed to push himself along the walls to where he guessed the camera’s blind-spot.

He slowly sank down back onto the cold floor directly below where the light was blinking.

Then, finally, he allowed himself to cast his mind back and try to piece together what happened to him.

* * *

Q had thought he’d feel awkward sweating into the T-shirt that Bond had lent him, but he found that all his hang-ups had disappeared now that he stood panting and feeling more than a little hot after Bond had concluded their “just a bit of a warm-up, Q, nothing too strenuous after yesterday’s running”.

“Just a bit of a warm-up, my arse,” he grumbled as he peeled the black fabric with the _La Estrella *****_ logo off his chest to allow for some air flow to cool him down.

“Your arse will thank me for it later, when it doesn’t cramp up,” Bond shot back immediately, launching a water bottle Q’s way. Annoyingly, _he_ had managed to retain his dewy fresh looks.

“If you say so, _maestro_ ,” Q snarked back. He had fumbled with the bottle less than usual as he caught it, and that—along with the thought of the words printed on the back of the T-shirt he was wearing—made him snort and choke a little as he took a sip.

A shoulder propped against the gymnastic wall bars, Bond was watching him with a smile and raised eyebrows.

“I think you’re lying, you know,” Q announced, as he screwed the cap back on, and threw the bottle at Bond’s annoyingly non-sweaty face. “I think you’re lying and there is footage of you and Trevelyan at that hotel teaching those women, and I am going to find it.”

“If you say so, Quartermaster,” Bond parroted, as he put the bottle away and moved back onto the training mats and towards the clear stretch of wall on the other side.

“ _’I know this is the self-defence class, maestro, but I’ve been having so much trouble getting into my downward facing dog. Won’t you help me? Teach me, maestro!_ ’” Q called out in the highest voice he could manage, as he slowly trailed after him. Then in a ludicrously deep voice, imitating Bond’s smooth drawl, he continued: “ _’Stretch your arms towards the sky, ladies, niiiice and looong, tilt your head back and say hello to the sun._ ’ There is footage of this, and I’m going to find it.”

Waiting for him to catch up, Bond leaned against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, and looked like he was suppressing a laugh. Q grinned into his sparkling eyes as he stalked over to him.

The idea of 007 and 006 having to corral a bunch of bored and lustful women into some semblance of those classes, while watching for illicit encounters between the hotel owner and his terrorist friends, had provided him with a so-far unending source of amusement since Bond had taken the slightly rumpled, faded T-shirt out of his locker, and was forced to explain the writing on the back.

_defensa personal para mujeres 2006_

“I’m not sure why you need the footage, Q. Seems like you can amuse yourself without it just fine,” Bond said, shaking his head.

“Why, for my revenge, Bond, of course!” Q answered. “The three of you got me chased through the whole of Walworth with that ridiculous password, and I swear I’ve still got some of that coke and rum stuck in my nose! I promised that I was going to get you for that, and that is what I intend to do, even if it kills me.”

A muscle twitched at the corner of Bond’s left eye.

“You ran through two streets at the most. Don’t exaggerate, Quartermaster,” he countered immediately. “And before you quite run away with the idea, I’ll save you some time. I only taught the self-defence classes, and my ladies were eager to learn and the picture of Victorian propriety. Alec’s yoga crowd, though…” He smirked at Q and his eyes shone impossibly blue.

Q grinned at him.

Something was different now. The agent-spotting with Bond had been fun, getting to tease him in the car along with Cassie and Zaheer about being a shite at mission control was entertaining in new and unexpected ways, but this… this was exhilarating!

“So what you’re implying is that there _is_ footage of 006 doing all the downward facing dogs and sun salutations…”

“…and with a 70s moustache,” Bond chimed in. Q couldn’t help but beam at him.

“…and with a 70s moustache,” Q repeated slowly with barely suppressed glee, before getting back to the matter at hand. “But your own conduct during that 2006 mission would not provide any blackmail material whatsoever?”

“None,” Bond denied firmly, but a muscle at the corner of his mouth was giving a faint, almost invisible twitch like he’d have to bite his lip to keep from smiling if he weren’t a secret agent capable of maintaining an impressive poker face.

“I’m not sure I believe that, agent Bond.” Q stood next to him, and imitated Bond’s posture against the wall.

Q tried not to grimace when he felt the clammy fabric of Bond's T-shirt stick to his back again. Bond’s lips twitched harder.

“It’s a moot point anyway, Quartermaster,” Bond said, peeling himself away from the wall, and stepping in front of Q. “Seeing as no such footage exists.”

Bond and his blue eyes and upward-curving lips moved closer.

Q opened his mouth to answer, but Bond spoke again before he could find the words.

“Back to work, Q,” he said.

He was standing very close, and not smiling any more, the line around his mouth gone flat and serious again.

Q wondered _why_ he was standing very close.

“In self-defence, it’s important that you don’t let the other person get too near. Out on the street, six feet is really the closest you’re safe. Any closer and they could easily get a hold of you.”  

“You’re very close,” Q felt compelled to note.

Because it was true.

Q wasn’t sure Bond had ever stood quite so close to him before; he had certainly never seen his eyes and the wrinkles around them from such proximity. Q made a point not to look at them.

 “I am very close,” Bond agreed pleasantly. Q could smell his aftershave.  

Q shivered; the cold of the wall seeped through his T-shirt.

“Because I’m going to show you how to deal with someone who’s already gotten too close and pushed you against the wall.”

“Uh-uh.”

“People have a tendency to aim for the nose, but that’s not the best target. If you have to, if you can, push your fingers deep in here.” Bond brushed his forefinger against the base of Q’s neck. The wall was very cold.

“At the base of the neck, in that dip between the clavicles. You jab them here as hard as you can. It’s very painful, even a small amount of pressure is exceedingly unpleasant.” Q raised an eyebrow at him to cover his nervous swallow. “Go on, try it.”

Feeling strangely exposed, Q poked his finger where he had felt Bond’s touch before.

 He gagged; Bond grinned and his eyes lightened for a moment before turning serious again.

“If you want to incapacitate someone long enough to make a quick getaway—which, by the way, is the goal of each of these moves—that’s where you aim. If the base of their neck isn’t exposed, punch them in the throat, or whack them over the head with whatever is closest.”

Q nodded and tried to deal with the whiplash; his mind reeling, the base of his throat still tingling. Bond seemed to have gone from joking around to strangely serious in a matter of seconds, and Q had no idea why, or why it mattered to him. There was something about the atmosphere in the room that was disquietingly familiar.

Bond nodded as well, satisfied with Q’s nonverbal answer and went on, while Q was racking his brain, trying to remember when he had seen something like this before.

“But to be able to do those things, you need to know what’s going on. Which won’t happen, if you crack your head against the wall after they push you. Curl your shoulders, duck your head on impact; then, immediately go for the neck. Alright, Q?”

“Alright,” Q said slowly, and then immediately yelped out: “Ouch!” as his head hit the wall behind him when Bond pushed him.

“I didn’t know you meant right now!” he said accusingly, rubbing at the back of his head. Bond just raised an eyebrow at him, and waited for him to step away from the wall again.

“So, what are you going to do now, Quartermaster?” he asked leadingly. Still serious, but a bit of that teasing spark was back. Q rolled his eyes at him, but repeated dutifully:

“Curl my shoulders, duck my head.”

“And strike back.”

“And strike back.”

Bond gave him a shove, and Q let his back take the brunt of the impact before raising his head.

Bond was even closer now.

His file listed his eye colour as blue. But from this close, Q could see that around the pupils his irises shone with a pearly light that turned only a little darker before ending in a ring of navy blue.

Bond used to be a sailor. Q knew that from his file as well.

“Aren’t you forgetting something, Q?” His breath caressed Q’s cheek.

Q nodded, and breathed in carefully.

“Probably.”

He had hit his head; obviously his brain wasn’t working as usual right now.

Because usually, because before, Q’s brain thought that Bond was an arrogant condescending prick. Q wasn’t sure when exactly his brain had decided to change its mind about that.

Now, it had made the executive decision that his blood flow would be much more useful in the nether regions of his body, namely his cock, and wasn’t currently necessary for higher order thinking.

Fantastic.

“Could I try again?” he asked to prevent Bond, who was looking ready to start casting concerned glances over his figure, from doing just that.

Bond was still the same man who had had his mission equipment gift wrapped to rub his win in Q’s face. Still the same man who, after Q had assumed his position, had kept consistently breaking into Q-branch’s armoury, taking out weapons without authorization and traipsing off with them to the ranges at all hours of the day for six whole months before Q lost his patience and brought in his personal T-Rex—TR.X, the final, tenth version of his tea-fetching robot—and fitted a gun on him…

His hard-on subsiding, Q let himself be pushed against the wall again, before stepping forward angrily into Bond’s space and giving him a hard shove.

“Very good! That’s what I’m talking about!” Bond beamed at him with a proud smile; all traces of the previous urgency suddenly gone.

Oh…

Q’s mind stopped. Then went into overdrive.

It must have been that third jolt of the day when his back hit the wall.

Suddenly, the whole pattern rearranged itself in his head, and Q knew what was so familiar about the urgency in Bond’s attitude as he was imparting the wisdom of the best self-defense techniques, and “after Q assumed his position” became “after M died at Skyfall”, and Q remembered Bond’s voice on the comms as he said “I can’t see you. The map with the tracker’s frozen.”

Oh…

“Alright, Q?” said the same voice.

Bond was looking at him from a few feet away; Q’s heart squeezed itself into a ping-pong ball.

Oh shit…

Probably for longer than seemed normal, Q stared, letting his brain draw every small detail to its full conclusion. When he finally nodded, a bit unsteadily, Bond called him over with a gesture and the words:

“I’m going lie down, Q, and show you how to get out of someone strangling you on the ground. Now, you have to always try to do everything you can not to let them get you on your back. But if it ever happens, it’s good to know what to do, so you don’t lose your head...”

And Q went, because this wasn’t bizarro world, this was still the same reality as yesterday and the day before that, only now Q felt he was seeing Bond clearly for the first time since they had met each other in front of that Turner.

And he could have dealt with the hard-on, he could have dealt with a friendly, bantering Bond, but the one thing he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that he could not dismiss and deal with was a Bond who, after everything that had happened in Egypt, was lying down on the training mat, asking Q to kneel beside him “on one knee, Quartermaster, otherwise you can’t strangle me properly”, asking him to put his hands around his neck and squeeze.

Q suddenly realized he was kneeling awkwardly with his arms stretched out towards Bond’s prone form, saying:

“I… I don’t…”

Bond’s eyes softened.

“It’s alright, Q, really. It’s been a long time since the pyramids.”

“It’s been three months.”

“Long enough.  Come on, Quartermaster, put your back into it.”

Laughter snorted out of Q before he could stop it.

“You’re such a bastard.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The skin underneath his palms felt so much softer than he had expected, as Q carefully wrapped his fingers around Bond’s throat.

Except for the places where his five o’clock shadow began. Those were rough…

…and Q was kneeling beside Bond with his crotch in full view, and he absolutely could not afford to think about how that coarseness would feel scraping along other parts of his body, how it would look on Q’s blue pillow-cases with dawn-light streaming through the windows …

Oh shit…

“Squeeze harder, Q,” Bond was saying, as well as: “Now watch carefully as I get my knee between your arms and against your shoulder, and then I’ll raise my hips off the ground and push hard…”

Q was suddenly flying back, and found himself very glad for the distraction the pain brought as the back of his head hit a hard surface again.

* * *

Q rubbed at the tender spot at the back of his head. It didn’t hurt so much anymore. He had yelped out in pain, scrubbing at his hair in the gym showers afterwards. 

Bond had walked out of his stall with one towel around his waist, the other rubbing at his head, all blue eyes and ears sticking out, and Q remembered the sudden sting of tears in his eyes, that jolt of his heart, and that was the moment he realised that he…

That was Friday afternoon.

Did that mean that a lot of time had passed?

Q muffled a growl of frustration. There might be hidden mics, and he didn’t know enough, didn’t have a plan!

How could he possibly guess how long he had been incapacitated just from how much the bump on his head hurt? Aside from the massive bruise on the side of his neck, nothing else seemed injured.

His clothes… those were his pajama pants he was wearing, he’d put them on along with the sweatshirt that evening when he nipped out to Mrs Katsaros downstairs for some laundry detergent. There was Bond’s sweaty T-shirt and his own tzatziki stained cardigan, and the laundry never got done if he waited to do it until Saturday.

Tzatziki: dill and garlic…

Q fought a retch, his stomach squeezing painfully; tender from nausea… and so very, very empty.

Breath catching in a gasp, Q’s heart started to beat wildly in his temples.

Once in mission control, he had gone a full day not even stopping for a snack. It had been unpleasant, painful, but _nothing_ like this.

Whoever they were, whatever they had given him, it had knocked him out for much longer than 24 hours.

Q’s mind whirled with the number of drugs he knew could do that. Swallowing, he let out a long shaky breath, and rubbed at his heart racing under the thin layer of his sweatshirt.

They hadn’t hurt him when he was passed out. Except for that bruise, he didn’t have a scratch on him.

That was… good, he decided.

They wanted him for something. Q inhaled through his nose, and took his time letting the breath out. It helped settle the blood in his temples.

He supposed he’d see how well he had done remembering that SERE seminar.

Q rubbed at his toes to give them a little warmth. He ended up with a strange greasy residue on his fingers.

He’d need to get up, and start moving soon. Stretching was the key, he knew. A warm-up…

“Aaaa!” he shouted, covering his eyes, when a painfully bright lightbulb pierced the darkness of the room. To his left, a door banged opened.

Q forced his eye-lids apart and, through the tears, he blinked at the figure in the doorway, through which more painful light poured into the room—his feet and hands were smudged with black powder—into the coal cellar.

But he didn’t need to see to be able to recognise the voice that said:

“Oh, there you are, Q! I’ll just tell them that you’re alright, then, and be on my way. They were worried you might have crawled off, mate, and died off-camera. They really have no idea what they’re doing. I mean; a horse tranquilizer? Amateurs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to DarkJediQueen for the help with Spanish :)
> 
> Also, Ooops? :) I mean... it is in the tags? :D

**Author's Note:**

> For the fest: Chapter 5 and up :D


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